the path to neverland
by lydiamaartin
Summary: Emma Swan is fourteen when she is taken by Peter Pan's shadow to Neverland to live with the lost boys, Wendy Darling, and Tinkerbell, where she meets the fearsome pirate Captain Hook and finds danger, adventure, and mystery. But everyone grows up eventually, and so does Emma - until the day Peter Pan calls her to help him find an old lost boy: Baelfire. - AU, Captain Swan.
1. prologue

**disclaimer:** i don't own ouat or peter pan.

**notes:** this is a complete au of ouat, stemming from three hundred years back in the fairytale realm and starting roughly fifteen years before the start of the show in the modern realm. when it comes to ouat's version of neverland, assume nothing.

i wanted to rewrite the neverland arc completely because it left me dissatisfied, so a lot of the details and even characterizations and motives of neverland characters have been changed, mostly into a blend of their ouat characters, their original book characters, and what i think would have been cool to do with an evil peter pan and co. this will span emma's life from adolescence to adulthood, with a pretty big time-jump in between, just so you know the scope of the story. this is not about the charmings, though they do factor in later - this is about emma, as a lost girl, and neverland. yes, this will be captain swan later, but don't expect the captain swan of canon because this is not about a romance.

story image credit to _brightsidesp' _beautiful graphic on tumblr.

**full summary:**

_Emma Swan is a fourteen-year-old girl living in an orphanage when she's stolen away by the shadow of Peter Pan to come live in Neverland. Here, she meets the lost boys, Wendy Darling, Tinkerbell, and a world she thought only existed in stories. Here also is the fearsome pirate, Captain Hook, the archnemesis of Peter and the lost boys, seeking treasure to help him kill a crocodile. In the jungles of Neverland, Emma finds danger, adventure, and mystery – and a family she's never had before. _

_But nothing lasts forever, and everyone has to grow up eventually. Neverland becomes a memory, a secret she holds close to her heart, until Peter Pan calls her back to help him find the lost boy who escaped – Baelfire. The search for the missing lost boy leads Emma down a road of ancient secrets, fairytale curses, and lost children – and maybe even to her own family, and the love that was always missing from her life._

* * *

She is fourteen years old when she is taken by the shadow one windy autumn night in a lonely orphanage in Seattle, and before she can blink the world is flying away beneath her and the stars are cracking open, one by one, leading to a sea she has never known before, an island she knows she will not find on any map, a boy she remembers only from childhood stories. She is fourteen years old, and her whole world turns upside down in the space of a heartbeat.

The first thing she sees when she opens her eyes is a boy, tall and handsome in a sinister way, with dark and critical eyes, peering down at her half in curiosity and half in expectation. He is dressed in jungle greens and browns, clothes from another time and place, but she has no time to sort any of this out before he is kneeling, and she feels like suffocating under his gaze, and then – then he is holding a hand out for her to take.

"Hello, Emma," he says, his voice sugary sweet like those old matrons at older orphanages who promised her that she would find a family one day and spun lies coated with honey about what a beautiful world it was beyond those sad grey walls. "It's very nice to meet you."

She's lying on the ground, covered in dirt and grass and god knows what else, so she takes his hand and lets him pull her up, both of them rising to stand facing each other, him in examination, her in breathless fear and wonder. There is a part of her, a part buried deep within, that thinks she recognizes this boy from her dreams and fairytales, from books and movies and magic, from a world she knew once and had forgotten as the walls around her heart were built higher and higher.

"Who – who are you?" she demands, unsure what she's really asking. His name is one thing, but _who he is_, that's a completely different thing. The name, she can deal with.

"Peter Pan," he says quietly, a smirk lighting up his face, all glow-in-dark mystery and old legends wrapped up in his voice. "Recognize me?"

And what child wouldn't recognize the boy-king of Neverland?

-:-

"I don't normally take girls," he explains to her as she follows him through the jungle, hopping over vines and roots and branches, soaking up the moonlight. "But I have a…situation, and she asked for a friend. I obliged. Hope you don't mind. I think she'll like you."

Emma, shaking and shivering and terrified and awestruck, breathes out, "You kidnapped me," she accuses, breathless from the walk and the cold but still determined to make her point. "That's _illegal_."

Peter chuckles, a vicious sound that cuts straight through her bones. "Maybe where you come from," he says flippantly. "But this is Neverland, Emma. Here, there are no rules." He flourishes a hand, and it all sounds so terribly _inviting_ – Neverland, a place where you never have to grow up, a world without rules, an island only for children. No dreary, foreboding orphanages, no families to abandon you, no horrible, bullying older children. Nothing but the open air and the jungle sinking into her veins as she walked and Peter Pan, the boy from the fairytales come to life.

"N-neverland is a _story_," she says insistently, because she's Emma Swan, and she has nothing if not her reality. Her cheeks are flushed from the chill of the evening breezes, and her voice shakes a little, still overcome with the magnitude of what she's experiencing, but she forces the words out of her lungs and into the air anyway. He might be _Peter_ _Pan_, but she is not some _gift_ to be wrapped in a bow and sent to his _girlfriend_, or whatever his situation was.

He shoots her an amused look over his shoulder and quickens his pace, and she has to struggle to keep up. "Maybe where you come from," he repeats, the words far more haunting this time around, whipping in the winds around her and easing into her mind. "Anyway, you'll like her," he adds, almost comfortingly as he parts a veil of vines and flowers and leads her into what looks like a campsite. "In fact, you may have already heard of my little friend. Her name's Wendy. Wendy Darling."

-:-

Wendy Darling is a tiny girl, four feet and eleven inches of blonde curls and white lace and fluttering hands, and yet she stands in the middle of the lost boys like a princess among servants, all prim and proper and soft curves to their varied sharp angles. She looks like a dream amongst nightmares, and Emma feels oddly warmed by her mere presence when she turns to look at her and Peter standing at the edge of the campsite.

"You brought me a friend," she says slowly, her voice lilted with a light English accent and her bright eyes traveling between the two of them. "How very nice of you, Peter."

Peter grins in self-satisfaction. "Your wish is my command," he tells her, almost mockingly, and sketches her a quick bow. Wendy giggles and walks forward to stand in front of Emma, who is still shaking from the cold and unnerved by the gazes of the lost boys trained upon her. The book she had read in childhood is swimming in her mind, but this all seems so different from how she remembers what was meant to be a children's fairytale.

"Hello," Wendy says with a gentle smile, taking Emma's hands in hers. "Don't be afraid. We're all family here. What's your name?"

"Emma," she says, refusing to let her voice break. She is a million miles from whatever as her home these days, lost in a world that ought to be fictional, surrounded by characters from fairytales, and still, she feels more at peace in this jungle than she has at any orphanage. "My name is Emma."

"Pleasure to meet you, Emma," Wendy says sweetly, linking her arm into hers. "I'm Wendy. Don't mind the boys, they don't bite. Come on, I'll show you the girls' room."

Peter's gaze is heavy on her back as she allows Wendy to lead her away from the bonfire and the lost boys, away from him, and for a second, Emma feels chills go down her back. They're gone the next instant though, and maybe they were never there at all. Maybe she's imagining things.

Maybe all of this is just another dream.

-:-

The girls' room, as Wendy calls it, is actually a charming little treehouse nestled high amongst the branches of a tall maple tree. It's decorated in warm golds and purples, filled with all sorts of girly things like dresses and shoes and dollhouses, along with two marvelously soft feather beds. Emma sinks into one at Wendy's encouraging smile and sighs at how light it feels under her body – nothing at all like most of the beds she'd gotten used to at orphanages. Even the nice ones didn't feel quite so magical as this.

"Nice, isn't it?" Wendy smiles and looks out the window at the night sky and the endless jungle beyond. "Peter is very good to us. He doesn't take girls very often, but when he does, he treats us well. Well, he treats me well. And he brought you here for me, so he'll treat you well, too."

Emma frowns at her. "I still don't understand," she admits. "What am I doing here? I didn't even know this place was _real_. I thought it was just a story. And – " she hesitates. "Where are your brothers? They came with you in the story."

Wendy turns around, a lost look flashing across her eyes for the briefest second – but Emma sees it. She's good at recognizing that look on other kids. "Story? Oh, are we a story, now? I always figured one of those boys Peter let go was a writer. That was ages ago, though. I guess we'd be a fairytale to you all now."

She walks delicately across the wooden floorboards to sit down next to Emma on the bed before continuing, her hands twining almost nervously in her lap, though what she had to be nervous about, Emma can't figure out. "My brothers are here, actually. They're boys, you know. They're lost boys. You and I – "

There's a pause, a catch in her breath, and Emma waits for what seems like forever until she finishes with a small smile, "We're not lost boys," she says softly, a statement that should be blindingly obvious turned eerie on her lips, "We – we're lost girls."

The way she says it makes Emma think of something entirely different than lost boys. The boys are wild and free, messy hair and savage smiles, knives and spears dangling in their hands. Lost girls is something else – forgotten childhoods and old dolls and a mother's perfume, the scent of home and love and loss all entwined together. Lost girls is loneliness and heartache and remembering the dream of a dream of the person you were once.

Emma takes a breath, the reality of the night and Neverland and Wendy's words settling heavy on her shoulders, and stands, walking almost involuntarily over to the window so she can see what Wendy sees every night when she looks out at the jungle. There are trees almost as far as she can see, but there's sea, too, a little patch of glistening ocean where the trees meet the sand, and a large ship docked on the shore.

She leans over the window without really thinking about it, focusing in on the ship as it sits peacefully in the water, a few lights shining in the darkness of the night. "What is that?" she asks, the story itching at her mind – she knows it, she knows this, she's seen this ship before, in her imagination or in movies or in –

"That's the Jolly Roger," says Wendy, her voice sneaking up on Emma from behind. "That ship belongs to Captain Hook."

* * *

**a/n:** i hope you all liked it! i would really appreciate reviews and feedback telling me what you think, especially if you want to favorite or alert it!


	2. chapter one

**notes:** i should also promise you that there will be absolutely no romance between fourteen-year-old emma and captain hook. the romance will come when she's older; hook may be living on an island full of teenagers but he's not going to _date_ one.

and to my one reviewer, thank you! and no, pan will not be rumple's father - that was one of the first things i changed, because it really didn't fit with neverland mythology in any way, shape, or form. they will be linked, though, because i'm trying to stay somewhat true to canon, but their relationship will be different and, hopefully, better than canon.

* * *

The fire crackles like a symphony of flames in the open jungle air, shades of gold and white and the brightest bits of blue all swirling together to suck the chill of the night straight from her bones. Emma sits on a log around the bonfire, Wendy at one side, a lost boy on the other, and Peter Pan staring at her through the flames, and she closes her eyes, counts to three, and lets herself breathe.

"Are you enjoying the fire, Emma?" Wendy asks lightly, her voice sweet like strawberries on a summer's day, and shoots her a smile. Everything about her is so gentle, soft, unassuming – it might be comforting if it wasn't so unnerving. Emma looks at her, and she sees a girl, lonely and lost and wishing on shooting stars, hidden behind the façade of Peter Pan's pretty little princess. That girl reminds Emma of herself, and maybe that's why Wendy locks her away from everyone else. Emma can't blame her – she would do the same, given the choice.

"I am," she says, her words slow and anything but steady, still trying to familiarize herself with the feeling of speaking to Wendy Darling, to Peter Pan, to the lost boys that had previously only existed in her imagination. The feeling of Neverland, vast and awe-inspiring and magical and _terrifying_ settles in thick waves around her, like honey or tidal waves, sinking into her bones till all she can breathe is _Neverland_. It's incredible, enchanting, and utterly petrifying all at the same time.

Wendy doesn't say anything for a moment while Emma tries to find the words to describe the indescribable feeling of sitting at this bonfire a million miles away from everything she has ever known, and maybe it's because of the sensation of Peter's gaze ice-cold and white-hot all at once that makes her stumble over her next words. "Is it – are we always – is this what it's like, living here?" she finally manages to cough out, popping some berries in her mouth to cover up the uncertainty in her tone.

A smile plays on Wendy's lips as she returns her attention back to the fire-cooked meat on her lap. Emma's not entirely sure where it came from – she assumes Neverland has animals, and the lost boys have ways to hunt, but she's not interested in asking for a detailed explanation. "Something like this, yes," she replies, her voice seeming to drift away as she speaks. "Not everything is always the same, Emma."

It feels like there's more to her statement than that, but she lets her words dangle in the air with nothing to cinch them, and Emma takes a breath and returns to her food. Another gaze feels heavy on her back the instant she does, and she looks up to involuntarily meet the eyes of the tall, lanky boy sitting at Peter's right-hand side.

He doesn't break their gaze, instead letting a smirk overcome his face, his eyes shadowed beneath his long hair, and the moment stretches long enough to make Emma squirm in her seat. The way he's looking at her doesn't feel normal at all; it feels like he's studying her the way a predator does prey. Finally, he looks away, his hair falling down to cover his eyes from her and the world, and Emma feels her breath escape her in a sigh.

When she looks up next, Peter is grinning at her.

-:-

After dinner, she finds herself walking by the sea, away from Wendy and Peter and the boys for the moment while they busied themselves hunting for tomorrow's breakfast and playing war games and setting up for bed. She had told Wendy she needed some peace and quiet and ended up near the shore, far away from Peter's unsettling gaze and the looks of his lost boys that send shivers down her back when she recalls them.

The sea out here is beautiful, stained midnight blue from the sky's reflection and glittering with starshine atop the foaming waves that lap gently at the sand by her feet. She's not really looking where she's going, instead focused on the magnificent view of the ocean beyond the island, and before she knows it, she's standing in front of the Jolly Roger, still docked imposingly on the shore, and staring up at its bow with a dawning feeling of terror as she remembers exactly whose ship it is.

"Does Pan let his subjects wander off alone at night now?" asks a voice, rough and deep and low, from behind her, and she jumps and whirls around to see a figure standing in the shadows of the trees. The silhouette is tall and lean, one hand raised and – it's not a hand.

Emma steps backward, reaching for the knife she had been given at dinner to cut her meat, still in her jacket pocket, and curling her fingers around it. The Captain Hook of her childhood imagination had hardly been scary, but this Captain Hook seemed very, very different – and very, very dangerous.

"Stay away from me," she says, trying to sound braver and more confident than she feels. He slinks out of the shadows, disinterested and darkly amused as he surveys her, the little lost girl with a knife she scarcely knows how to use. She's sure she isn't intimidating at all, certainly not the way he is, all barely-repressed rage simmering beneath a carefully chilled surface as he oh-so-casually plays with his hook.

"Relax," he tells her dismissively, which almost cuts more than if he'd simply threatened her, because it feels like she's not even worth _Captain Hook's_ time, "I'm not here to hurt you. Pan and I have an understanding. I don't kill his gaggle of bloodthirsty children outside of our battles, and he and his lackeys don't attempt to touch my ship. It works well for all parties involved."

He sends her a smirk at this, as if sharing an inside joke with someone who's not here, and Emma feels strangely unnerved by his bluntness and nonchalance. It's like she's living in some twisted fairytale and everything is upside down and topsy-turvy and she's _talking to Captain Hook_. He doesn't even look much like the movie version of Captain Hook, but it still feels surreal.

"Now," he says, interrupting her thought process as she feels her grip on the knife slip from nervousness, "I do hope you weren't here to touch my ship, or we're going to have a problem." His words are accompanied with a meaningful stare, and she blinks up at him resolutely, refusing to show any fear, and slowly lowers the knife. Something flashes in his eyes when she does – surprise, maybe, or perhaps he's impressed by her fake bravado.

"I was just walking," Emma tells him, as firmly as her voice can manage. "I didn't mean to – to get in your way. And I'm not one of his – one of Pan's _lackeys_," she says, feeling pulled to defend herself as not being part of a _gaggle of bloodthirsty children_. "I'll leave you alone."

"Hold on," he says before she can leave, raising his good hand to stop her, and she freezes in place on the sand. He's eyeing her curiously now, like she's a new treasure he's just uncovered. Maybe she is. Or maybe that's just how pirates look at people. "You're the friend he's brought for Wendy, aren't you?"

She stares at him, nonplussed. "How did you know that?" she demands, not entirely sure she likes the idea of being _the friend Pan brought for Wendy_, which seems to be how everyone knows her around here. It's a little unsettling that even Captain Hook has heard the tale of Peter Pan bringing a girl back to Neverland for Wendy.

"Oh," Hook chuckles, "Pan and I, we may have our differences, but we do talk sometimes. He's quite interesting company, you know." He pauses to survey her again, then adds on, "Emma, right? He did mention an Emma last time we chatted."

She feels her brow wrinkling in confusion as she looks up at him. "You and Pan _talk_?" she asks incredulously, then his last statement hits her like a wave. "Pan talked about me? He – " Her mind is whirring, putting bits and pieces of this conversation and all others together. She settles on asking, "Why did he want me?" because that seems to be the message Hook is trying to get across – Pan wanted _her_, specifically, to bring to Neverland, and she has absolutely no idea why.

"Mmm, fascinating questions, all of them," Hook says with a raised eyebrow, turning around to face his ship, and she feels abruptly pushed to the side, as if she is no longer interesting. "I would suggest you consult with Pan on them, however. I hardly have the time to sit around chatting with a teenage girl."

Emma grits her teeth. For all his smirks and swaggering, he still seems like a schoolyard-variety _asshole_. She's about to leave, not wanting to waste her time with someone who clearly doesn't care to talk to her, but then she speaks again.

"By the way," he says, waiting for her to turn back to look at him before tossing her something too quickly she only barely catches it on instinct, "give this to Wendy, would you? She's a bit of a collector."

She blinks, first at him, then at what he's tossed her –it's a seashell, pale pink and shimmering in the moonlight on her palm. It's nothing special, but it's pretty and – why is he giving gifts to Wendy? She looks up to ask him just that, but finds herself staring at only the prow of the Jolly Roger and the endless expanse of sea.

He's disappeared like he was a ghost the whole time, and as Emma looks around the beach, she gets the unshakeable feeling that maybe he's not the only one haunting her on Neverland.

-:-

The moon seems to be hanging by a thread in the middle of the sky as she walks back to the treehouse. Her footsteps are light in the sand, feathers tracking a path through Neverland, never really touching it but being touched by it all the same. The jungle seems like it can swallow her alive, but the lost boys have a trail of lights for her to follow back – well, it's not home, but it's something.

"Busy night?" Peter asks, appearing next to her as if he'd been by her side the whole time. His voice is eerily quiet in the empty nighttime silence, a far cry from the laughter and howls during the games they'd been playing when she'd left. He smiles at her, a little kind, a little unkind, and she is left feeling displaced from her center of gravity.

"You could say that," she admits, looking back at the trees in front of her. Peter is the kind of boy that you feel like you might burn alive if you stare at him too long. He is blinding in the sense that lightning is blinding as it crackles across the sky of your universe and crashes straight into you. Emma hasn't met many lightning boys, but she's not going to let this one kill her. "How did you know where I was?"

There's a low chuckle in his voice, pressed down from the surface, when he speaks. "This is Neverland," he tells her lightly, and leaves the rest unsaid.

_And I am its king_.

Emma waits for the length of ten footsteps – she counts – before continuing the conversation, since he seems content to walk in silence next to her back to the campsite. "So, you and Hook – what's the story here?" She feels a little like those girls back at school, the gossiping, giggling gang of ruby-lipped sophomores and juniors who whispered amongst themselves about who was making out with who under the bleachers. Except this isn't high school. This is Neverland.

His gaze feels amused as it lingers on her, though she doesn't move her head to return it. "That depends on who's asking," he tells her after a pause, and his shoulder bumps hers for half a second. She's left warm where he touched her, sizzling with what feels a lot like _war_. "He is – an enemy, and he is a confidante. Often at the same time."

She tilts her head to eye him curiously. "Do you make a habit of speaking in riddles, or does it just happen spontaneously?"

He laughs, and it sounds like the jungle in a breath. "Riddles are for adults with nothing better to do. This is a land for children." There's a pause, a breath inhaled, then he says, "Don't trust Hook."

Emma pushes a branch out of her way and frowns at him. "I wasn't planning on it," she says slowly. "But I thought you did?"

Peter presses a hand against the trunk of a tree she's just passed, his arm sliding behind her, and she freezes at the clear signal to stop. His voice is low when he murmurs in her ear, "He is a pirate," he tells her softly, "and he is an adult. Neither are trustworthy."

A chill creeps down her spine, and it has nothing to do with the temperature of the evening air. "Are you?" she demands, but her voice is hardly loud enough to be firm. She wishes she were braver. She wishes she could be strong.

Peter pulls his hand back to himself, the two of them standing side by side, his head angled towards her. "Probably not," he admits, and there's the hint of cheekiness in his voice that indicates that the Peter he shows to the rest of the lost boys has returned, replacing the one that makes her ice-cold with fear.

She turns around to back him up against the tree, and he seems halfway between caught by surprise at her sudden movement and delightedly amused that she has the nerve. "Give me a reason I shouldn't trust Hook," she says, and leaves out the _and a reason I should trust you_.

"I can give you ten," he drawls, stepping out of her way with ease and sauntering forward past her. He's infuriating, and he's masterful, and he has every last bit of her attention, just the way she knows he wants. "Do you know why he's here? On Neverland, with us, fighting us? It's quite the story."

He grins mockingly at her. Emma steels herself. "Tell me," she says, not letting her voice waver, and Peter raises an eyebrow, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Well," he says slowly, nudging her shoulder as if they're _friends_, "it all started with a man named Rumplestiltskin."

* * *

**a/n:** please **DON'T** favorite/alert without reviewing, thank you. i would love to hear your feedback, and any thoughts or concrit or ideas are very welcome!


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